The present invention relates to audio/video (A/V) playback control of an electronic device, and more particularly, to a method for performing fluent playback control, and to an associated apparatus.
According to the related art, a portable electronic device equipped with a touch screen (e.g., a multifunctional mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet, etc) can be utilized for playback of an A/V clip or an A/V program. In a situation where the A/V clip or the A/V program comprises a lot of encoded data to be decoded, some problems may occur. For example, because of the codec complexity, fluent playback at each moment may not be guaranteed, where this problem may occasionally occur when some parameters of the A/V clip or the A/V program (such as the resolution, media type, etc.) are beyond the supported specifications. In another example, the video playback may be delayed due to decoding capability deficiency of the portable electronic device (e.g. in a situation where the system is busy handling multiple tasks at the same time) since the decoding load of the video portion in the A/V clip or the A/V program is typically heavier than that of the audio portion in the A/V clip or the A/V program. It seems unlikely that some conventional methods can solve the aforementioned problems without introducing some side effects, where examples of the side effects mentioned above may comprise standstill and audio-distortion problems. The standstill problem typically means the time that a future image is decoded and displayed on the screen is too late and therefore this current displaying image stays for a longer period than the predefined one on the screen. The audio-distortion problem typically means the audio playback is distorted due to adjustment of the audio playback. In conclusion, the related art does not serve the end user well. Thus, a novel method is required for enhancing playback control of an electronic device.